Main menu

Post navigation

More or Less Connected?

This morning we reply to The Daily Post’s invitation to create a post on the word “connection.”

Because Views from the Edge has been silent the last few days – my only connection has been an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder preoccupation with preparing a book proposal for submission to a publisher – and feeling no urgency to add more punditry dribble to the presidential campaign coverage, my immediate response was the antonym for connection: “separation.”

I’ve been totally connected to the book proposal; almost totally disconnected – separated, walled off – from Kay, Barclay, and the news. I’ve also been less physically present except for short breaks for meals and answering the bell Barclay rings when he needs to go outside to do his duty. I’ve been dutiful indoors with little connection to anything but the book proposal – more connected and more separate all at the same time.

Theologian Paul Tillich translated “sin” as “separation” from the Ground of Being, nature, neighbors, and one’s self. I’ve been living in sin! And, now that I’ve broken the silence in response to the Daily Post’s invitation, I’m going back to sin until the connection with the publisher is finally made – by means of the internet which has managed to produce a new paradox: wider connection and deeper separation than previously imagined.

Temporarily less connected until next Tuesday’s submission…unless Steve connects with a poem,

15 thoughts on “More or Less Connected?”

Wow, Tillich. It’s been a lot of years, but he was one of the important voices when I was studying in college.

I flunked “marketing” with my book. My proposal and other support materials were lame. I blew it. So, stay focused. It’s a cruel publishing world out there and you gotta do what you gotta do … and you gotta do it well or no one will take your work seriously. Sometimes, I wonder if live humans ever read the material we send, or it’s all scanned by software looking for buzzwords.

Marilyn, I share the sentiment. Some 100+ social commentaries and sermons have been published, but no books! I have two in the works: a zany novella that’s sat on the desktop for over a year without motivation to complete, and the collection of social commentaries I’m readying for submission. Westminster John Knox Press declined because they felt it would not meet their market (i.e., sales) requirements, but the V.P. suggested I submit to this other publishing house because of the quality of the writing and its seriousness. That should have been more encouraging than it was at the time, a year ago. My confidence plummeted and I had no energy for selling myself again. Long story why and how I decided to follow the suggestion and submit to publisher X. But I’m intent on getting the proposal in top form before hitting the send button!

Good. I have great confidence that this publisher will take it seriously. And, if they accept the proposal, I will rejoice because of the quality of the publishing house. They have published Walter Brueggemann, William Stringfellow and others who have influenced my life and thought over many years, as well as two authors I know personally. Here’s hoping, or, in your language, I’m momentarily, though hesitantly, almost “OPTIMISTIC”!